


We want what little love we hold

by AutumnHobbit



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Adopted Siblings, Angst, Brotherly Bonding, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Found Families, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, batfam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 15:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9447344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnHobbit/pseuds/AutumnHobbit
Summary: audreycritter: somewhere in the Wayne Manor there is a wall of pictures, each with Bruce in a suit and one of the kids in a suit or a dress, standing in a courtroom at the end of an adoption hearing.___________So I started thinking, 'how would Damian feel, to come to the Manor with all of his issues, and see a hallway full of photos of his father with his adopted children?'





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [audreycritter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/gifts).



> eeeek I hope Audrey doesn't mind that I wrote this. :$ 
> 
> But yeah, I just couldn't get the thought out of my head. And I went to a Tim & Dami place because I can. So yeah. 
> 
> Title from Greying Morning by Falling Up (which is Damian's theme song, seriously go listen to it.)

Damian wandered the hallways often.

When he first came to America, it was a coping mechanism, but he told himself it was perfectly reasonable to survey the house. It was tiny in comparison to the compound he was raised in, but it was by no means small--there were four floors, halls and staircases all over, rooms upon rooms upon rooms.

So Damian walked. It was surprisingly still and quiet through the house--most of the time, at least. His time was his own, at any rate. His father was gone, as Batman or as a CEO. Drake spent his time with his worthless associates, the Titans, and he had yet to meet his father's eldest ward. Pennyworth had more than enough to occupy his days without entertaining Damian. 

So Damian discovered many things about his father. He found a room that was clearly often-empty, but was unlocked and gave off a sense of warmth that he could not properly describe and would not dare try. The bed was made neatly by Pennyworth and the simple clothes were hung for the next visit. The paint was bright and cheerful, and the nightstand was covered in photographs. The Flying Graysons poster on the wall solidified Damian's suspicions. Richard's room. 

Damian peered at the photos for a while. There were photos with Pennyworth, a few of the Titans, and one in a pristine frame with a younger boy who looked vaguely irritated in juvenile fashion, but grinned in exasperation as he was hugged enthusiastically by a smiling Richard. Damian had never seen Jason Todd before. The photo was odd, gave Damian a curious feeling in his stomach. 

But he focused the most onto the photos with Father. There was a photo from the Gotham Times of Richard and Father at a press conference, when Father announced Grayson as his ward. Grayson was small and bright and beaming for the camera, by all accounts adorable in his tiny suit. Father's expression was more reserved, but he was smiling. The expression looked odd on him, even on his younger face.

Another time, he found a locked door only a few down the hall from Richard's room. He picked the lock out of a sense of boredom. He leaned in only long enough to see the freshly vacuumed carpet, the clothes still thrown onto the bed, and the open book face-down on the floor. His brain caught up with what he was seeing, and he quickly shut the door and hurried off, glancing around nervously for fear of being caught meddling in a dead boy's room. 

There were two libraries in the house, one in each wing. The western one was Damian's favorite; it had the best view from which to sketch the sunset. There was also a fine selection of books, most of which he had not yet read. His Mother had directed his tutors to educate him in the great masterpieces of history, but he had not read many of the classics. He enjoyed all of the tomes; they were nice, hardcovered, clean and well-kept. He had finished his fifteenth book when he noticed the small, neatly-scrawled text in the cover of the book: _This book belongs to Jason Todd._

After that, he frequented the east wing more often.

Drake's room was a mess; he rarely was home long enough to clean it, but was in it often enough that Pennyworth could not easily enter and tidy. He left clothes, shoes, uniforms, trash, piled ankle-deep on the floor. Damian took it as further evidence of Drake's unworthiness for the role of Robin; if he couldn't even keep his living space clean, how could he ever be truly prepared for disaster? He kept this opinion to himself, however; speaking it would reveal his trespassing and he doubted Drake would take very kindly to learning of Damian's trips to his room...especially since Damian had flipped through his photo album and found one of him with his parents. Drake looked unreasonably small, and oddly cowed by his mother's looming shape, but still smiling, leaning into her and seeming like he hoped he could get away with it due to the presence of the photographer. Damian felt strangely sick in his stomach at the sight of that photo, and quickly closed the book and kicked it back beneath the bed.

Father's room was large and empty, a huge canopied bed at the center and a table beside, and no other furnishings but a chest on the other side of the room. The chest was filled with silver knickknacks and trinkets. The closet was most interesting to Damian, and he spent an entire afternoon going through it. There were clothes of an older style, like those he had seen in movies from the 1950s, and jewelry in a handcrafted wooden box. He found a long fur coat like Mother had worn on occasion, a pair of leather shoes that were twice as long as his feet. He was particularly fascinated by a golden watch, which had a face with Roman numerals instead of Arabic letters. When Father ducked into his room to change out of his suit that evening, he saw Damian admiring the watch and stilled, his hands pausing in loosening his tie. Damian's pulse sped up without his consent.

"That was my father's watch," Father said dully, but not harshly, simply stating the fact. He seemed to shake his head, continuing to loosen his tie as he stepped into the closet. 

Damian glanced back at the watch. So it had belonged to his grandfather. He glanced at the photo of the man, alongside his grandmother and Father. He had always wondered, when Mother told him of their deaths, how people as wise and resourceful as they were could have died so easily. If he had been in that alley, he could have easily disarmed the gunmen, knew thirty-six different ways to kill him without a single weapon. It seemed ridiculous that they should have submitted to death so easily, and he could not help but think of them as incompetent fools. 

And yet, he thought, gazing at his Father's happy smile in the photo...they had meant something to Father. He still mourned them to this day, missed them. Thought of them. Fought because of them.

Perhaps there was something Damian was missing. 

It was not long after that that he found the hallway.

It wasn't anywhere obvious, tucked in the western wing between a family room which was always empty and several guest rooms. It was as well-maintained as the rest of the house, pristine. And yet somehow Damian could tell it was a place of memory, even before he truly looked at the pictures. 

There were four of them. The first was of Father, looking very young, alongside a child whom Damian now knew to be Grayson at age nine. Grayson was wearing the same suit he had been in the press conference photo, but in this picture he wasn't at a press conference. Instead, he was right outside a courtroom, in the wings of the courthouse. Father was crouched beside him, an arm wrapped warmly around his shoulder, a smile on his face. Grayson was smiling, too, one of the painfully bright ones he gave often when he was incredibly happy. On the bottom of the frame was an inscription that read, 'Dick's wardship hearing, 2001.' 

The next one was the same hallway, but a different child. There was a tightness around Father's eyes that had not been there in the previous photo--doubtless caused by the friction between him and the aforementioned child--but he was again beaming as Todd half-hugged him, giving a grin that was missing three teeth. 'Jason's adoption hearing, 2009.' 

The next one was more recent; the paint had been changed in the background of the photo. Father was grayer than he had been, his smile almost non-existent. He wasn't beaming any longer. But his slight smile was warm and fond, and Drake's was happy, if as subdued as Father's. (His father's, too.)

The last photo was not of a court hearing, but was of Father embracing Cain in the Manor, both of them smiling brightly at the camera. It wasn't dated, but Damian knew it was fairly recent, within the last few years. 

Pennyworth must have neglected to dust the hallway. Damian's eyes burned. 

He should not have felt jealous at all. He had what none of the others had; a biological relationship to Father. He could see similarities to his grandparents' faces when he looked in a mirror. He was naturally broad and muscular, even at his young age. He was Father's son, his heir.

And yet. This was a hall of memories. Memories he had no part of. Father had given him a place to live out of duty, for he was an honorable man. But treat him as a son? No. Damian was but a guest. A charity case. He saw here what a child of Father's looked like. And Father had never, ever looked that happy because of him. 

Damian hated the hallway from that day on.

But he continued to go there, often. 

He would look more closely at the photos sometimes; try to identify the people in the background, count the paintings in the hall. Most of the time, he studied Father.

Sometimes, he studied the children instead.

Sometimes, he just sat there across from them, back pressed against the wall, knees pressed to his chest, forehead against his knees. 

On one of those times, after a particularly harsh patrol, he sat there in a hoodie and sweatpants. Titus followed him and sat down next to him, so he absentmindedly stroked the dog's fur as he sat there in the quiet.  
He must have been there for at least an hour, just sitting, staring. 

"Oh."

Damian didn't bother to hide the fact that he rolled his eyes before lazily glancing over at Drake, who was paused at the entrance to the hall, a towel draped around his neck, hair wet. "Back to annoy us all with your presence, I see." Damian bit out, turning back to the pictures and fully expecting Drake to stalk off towards his room. But, after a few hesitant moments, Drake stepped forward and glanced at the photos himself.

"You...you found the hall." He said, like he was surprised, and Damian scoffed. "I found the hall _months_ ago, imbecile." He shuffled the hoodie's sleeves back up--it was a bit too large for him--and resettled against the wall, hood firmly over his face. 

Drake was still glancing back and forth between the photos and Damian, wide-eyed, and not for the first time Damian wished he could bring himself to attack the interloper with a knife or something. But he was trying to follow Father's rules, and Drake was off-limits for serious maiming. So he unwrapped his hand from his dagger and flopped his hands back over his knees, studying the carpet. 

It was very quiet for a beat, the only sound the distant rumbling of the furnace. He was almost startled when Drake sat down beside him, not touching, but still close. 

"...He wasn't that happy when I first showed up," Drake said neutrally, and Damian wished he could bring himself to snap, push the older boy away. Wished that he weren't hanging on every word Drake spoke. 

"When I first approached him..." Drake swallowed hard. "He told me there was no need for a Robin. It was pretty obvious for, for _years_ that I was a liability." Tim blinked, his chin dipping and his bangs falling over his eyes. "Sometimes he'd forget that I wasn't Jason," he admitted lowly. "It was so...weird. He seemed so much...lighter. And then he'd remember, and it would be back to...to quiet. Subdued, I guess." Tim gave a hoarse laugh. "I. I kind of liked it, when he forgot it was me. It felt...nice. Like I was a good thing. To be cherished." 

Tim swallowed. Damian stared fixedly at his face, a curious feeling stirring in his chest. He felt... _bad_. As if he understood this pain, knew it as well as he knew his own reflection, and was sorry that someone else knew it, too. 

Drake continued gazing at the carpet for a beat. Finally, he lifted his head and looked Damian right in the eye, something sharp and intense in his gaze. 

"But it didn't last forever. Bruce loves me. I know that, now. Maybe he didn't always, but he does now. And he will figure it out someday, Damian. He _will."_

Damian couldn't blink, couldn't tear his green eyes away from Tim's-- _Drake's_ grey ones, both hating and relishing the hope that was rising in his chest. And he found, to his own great surprise, that he believed Drake. He _believed_ him. 

Damian dipped his eyes, nodded mutely. His throat was strangely tight, and he could find no words even though there were many swirling through his mind. 

He heard Drake sigh, but it didn't quite sound like an exasperated one. The floorboards creaked as the older boy stood. Damian didn't look up, his gaze fixed on the floor. Drake's bare feet were planted on the thick carpet. 

"Trust me, Damian," Drake said, from up above. "You'll have your own picture in here one day."

With that, he turned and walked off, back towards the stairway to the third floor.

Damian couldn't breathe again until he was gone.

But he also didn't move for another hour. 

It wasn't until he was home again, a year later, freshly-resurrected and warmer inside than he could ever remember being, that he passed the hallway again and noticed the extra frame. He hoped none of his family had seen him as he backpedaled and froze.

There, on the wall beside Drake's photo, was a picture of him. 

He didn't recall seeing a camera at the time, but he remembered the instance; he was sitting on the couch, watching a film, and Father had walked past, but had paused to lean down and kiss his forehead. In the photo, Father's eyes were closed, his expression both peaceful and fervent. Damian had one eye squeezed shut and the other open, his nose scrunched up in playful disgust, but what he would admit was a quiet smile playing on his lips. 

Months later, when Drake was... _gone_...Damian sat alone in the hallway once again, gazing emptily at the feet of the chest. He didn't look up at the shaky intake of breath when Grayson saw him, didn't look up when Grayson slowly, quietly slid onto the floor himself, the noises muffled in the carpet, the whole house muffled and empty. 

"I found him in here, sometimes, while you were...gone." Grayson whispered, hushed, like a confession. "He just sat here and stared at his picture. And at yours, after Bruce put it up."

Damian didn't look at Grayson while he spoke. He didn't look up until Grayson had left again, until the only sounds were the distant rumbling of the furnace and the quiet voices drifting up the stairs.  
He looked up at Drake's picture again, at the hint of a warm smile on his face, faint but wholly there.

He had been given more chances to live for his family than he could ever deserve. 

He could hope that his big brother might have more, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr: autumnhobbit.tumblr.com


End file.
